Can we all please just lighten up?

We live in serious times, and nowhere is this more evident than in our public schools.

Lockdown drills. Locker searches. Guards at the gates. The spate of school shootings has everyone on edge, which tends to eliminate tolerance for humor with any edge.

Last week I received an email from a student at Nipmuc Regional High School in Upton, who wrote that she was “very disturbed” about a teacher’s comment during the school’s lockdown drill.

“We were all getting ready to go sit against the wall when our math teacher, Ronald Cochran, said, ‘Kids with the lowest grades, go sit by the door.’ While I can only imagine this was meant to be a sarcastic joke, it was scary and inappropriate.”

Was it really? She continued, “In a time when we were supposed to be feeling safe, we felt threatened and uncomfortable. The school will talk to him, but because he’s a union worker, their hands will be tied. My mother contacted the superintendent of schools. The fact that my mother asked if she should bring me right over and ‘no, tomorrow is soon enough’ was the response she got seems crazy.

“To me, and to everyone else, we feel this is a huge deal and something finally needs to be done about this teacher. ... He has been known to refer to myself and fellow classmates as ‘not smart enough,’ making us feel inadequate ... He makes snide remarks about us to our faces on a constant basis. Frankly, we’ve all had enough. ... We are tired of his actions going undisciplined. Please help us.”

Such a plaintive plea for relief cannot go unanswered. This student needs help, but probably not the kind she has in mind.

First, allow me to admit that I found the teacher’s comment ... kind of funny. God help me, but I laughed. This admission will likely incur the wrath of those compelled to point out that the murder of school children is never, ever amusing, as though any sane person needs that reminder.

But for those who don’t find the teacher’s joke funny, humor is subjective and I get that. Still, how does a student feel “threatened” by a dumb joke that wasn’t even directed to her?

Rather than simply brush off the teacher’s attempt at humor as oafish, she reports the incident to her mother. And the mother, rather than suggest her daughter get over herself, calls the superintendent. And not only does she call the superintendent, but she was apparently appalled that the school failed to treat the incident as a safety emergency.

I understand times have changed, and today’s entitled young people should never feel uncomfortable or inadequate, lest someone be made to pay. This is a radical departure from, say, the 1970s, when I was in high school and sporting a black eye from a basketball game. In biology class, my male teacher asked if my boyfriend had “smacked me around” and then offered that I probably deserved it. His comments weren’t funny, and yeah, I felt a little uncomfortable. But I figured that was MY problem; it never occurred to me to report this teacher for making a bad joke.

I suppose you have to admire a student who believes that any perceived slight to her delicate sensibility deserves attention from the newspaper and punishment of the offender. Neither the Nipmuc principal nor superintendent were inclined to discuss the incident. When I reached Cochran at the school, he declined to comment. So I don’t know if he was suspended, told to clean up his act, or hung from the rafters.

I do know that this incident underscores yet another case of political correctness run amuck. Pair that in 2013 with a young person’s self-righteous indignation, legitimate or otherwise, and this poor teacher is lucky he still has a job.